When An Answer, Isn't
by CornishGirl
Summary: In 10x19, "Book of the Damned," with the radio blaring classic rock, hope soaring, we saw the Dean of the early seasons. All too soon that hope was more than dashed, but smashed. And brothers, united against evil, are taking different paths to fight that evil. Two missing scenes, two viewpoints.
1. Chapter 1

**When An Answer, Isn't**

* * *

He had never been as good at subterfuge as Dean. Oh, he'd learned to lie, to act, to con whomever for whatever reason that served their purpose. Hell, he could be a Fed to _con_ a Fed. But to con his own brother?

To outright lie to Dean?

Yes. He could. He could do anything now, to his brother.

Because it was _for_ his brother.

So he waited until they'd all chowed down on pizza, downed beer, celebrated Cas being _Cas_ again, full-on angel Castiel; waited until Dean was regaling Charlie with some of the exploits they'd shared with the angel. Dean, laughing, grinning, at ease for the moment with the Mark in abeyance, sated by the Styne killings.

Sam vowed it. _I'll get you your vacation if it kills me._

And he rose, dumped his plate and empty bottle, wandered off in the direction of the nearest bathroom. Once out of sight, he went instead to his room, took from under his bed the warding box containing the Book of the Damned.

It was not safe here. Only a week before Dean had proven his willingness to invade his brother's space for the sake of pranks; Sam couldn't trust him not to repeat the performance. And if he found the Book . . .

He heard laughter carrying through the hallway. One corner of his mouth twitched briefly in a half-smile; Dean was a gifted storyteller with an exquisite sense of timing.

But there was no time for reflection.

He strode swiftly through the hallways, went to Room 7B. Slid apart the shelving, walked into what they now referred to as 'the dungeon.'

Sam knelt, ran his hands along the document boxes, moved aside books on the bottom shelf, made room behind. With care he set the warding box on edge, pushed it against the back of the shelf, replaced the doc boxes and books in front of it, rose.

He heard the words again.

'_Well then you'll just have to lock me up . . . bind me to the bunker like you did last time.'_

That was not an option.

The Book was an option.

He stared at the devil's trap embedded in the floor. Remembered all too well how he and Cas had forced his black-eyed brother into the chair within the trap, had bound him with rope and sigil-etched handcuffs. Remembered the terrible words the demon had hurled at him, and the roar that still gave him nightmares. Recalled, too, how he had watched his brother writhe in pain as purified blood burned away the demon.

He'd said it in the cabin, as Dean insisted that he could fight the Mark. _'Until what, Dean? Until I watch you become a demon again? Until then?'_

Aloud, he repeated what he'd said to his brother. "I can't do that. I _won't_ do that."

With Dean, he had a sixth sense. He knew when he entered the dungeon. Didn't need to hear him. He just knew.

"Sam?"

He didn't turn. He just kept staring at the devil's trap.

Dean's tone was light. "So, what . . . you figuring out a better way for keeping me in here next time? Last time it didn't work out so well."

He steadied his voice. "That's not funny."

"Come on, Sammy—it's a little funny."

Now he swung around and met his brother's eyes. Let him see what he felt: the fear, the pain, the despair. The determination. He hid nothing.

Nor did Dean, who denied the determination. "We had no choice, Sam. We couldn't take the risk. You know how I am when the Mark takes over . . . add the Book to that? For all we know it would make the freakin' apocalypse look like foreplay." He shrugged. "We got that stopped. We'll stop this."

"Will we?"

"Yeah. We're the Winchesters." Dean held out the bottle he'd brought along with his own. "Come back to the party, Sammy. You're missing my best stuff."

Sam reached out for the beer. The warding box had blocked Jacob Styne from tracking the Book. Now it stopped Dean from sensing it even two feet away.

But it couldn't remain here. The answer lay within it. Sam simply needed to figure out the next step, find someone who could decipher it. Someone who understood spellwork and curses and blood magic. Someone . . .

Ah. Yes.

From what Dean had said in the car, she might have the answer.

His brother's brows twitched in a frown. "What?"

Sam gave him innocent eyes. "What?"

"Something's going on in that nerd brain of yours."

"Something's _always_ going on in my nerd brain." Sam intentionally moved past his brother, knowing he would follow. Sam closed up the room, then quietly led Dean down the hallway and away from the Book. Yes, he could, and would, con his brother. If that's what it took. These days, Dean wasn't the only Winchester who made the hard choices and accepted consequences. "We got any ice cream?"

"No. But we got _pie_."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

* * *

For a handful of hours, he had felt himself buoyed by hope. An answer at last. More than a year of hell living on his arm, a literal parasite sucking away his life, stealing free will, driving him relentlessly to do do _bad_, to do _evil_, to kill without thought. The demon was cured—though even that was a tiny niggling doubt, after the flash in the mirror that showed him onyx-eyed once again—and the First Blade was in Cas's keeping, but the Mark remained. He was human, but wasn't _normal_.

He'd meant what he'd said to Charlie, to Sam. He _would_ keep fighting. He wouldn't give up that battle. But he knew he was losing ground.

With the Stynes newly dead, he didn't feel the sick craving that came on when the Mark was unsated. But it burned bone-deep, was never quiescent. And it was strengthening.

So hope had come bounding out of the dark as he drove toward the cabin, toward a Book that contained the answer. He'd felt wholly himself with the radio on and great classic rock playing—yeah, the boys _were_ back in town!—and it was good that he wanted to sing along, head-bang, drum hands against the wheel. It was good that the idea of an actual vacation didn't make him scoff that vacays were what other people did, not Winchesters.

Sand between his toes. Not grave-dirt, not sulfur, not ick or goo or guts or blood. Just plain old beach sand; and bare, unbooted feet. And maybe . . . Christ, a bathing suit? An actual bathing suit instead of the cut-off jeans he'd worn as a kid when he and Sam splashed in a creek or swam in shallow rivers.

He was thirty-six years old, and for those few moments in the car, as he mouthed lyrics and thought about a beach and sand and getting away from the life, he'd shed thirty-two of those years to be, briefly, a four-year-old again, a boy whose concerns were those of a little kid with a mom and a dad and a new baby brother. Apple pie life.

And then the Book of Damned, as Charlie opened it, stripped away hope, because what lay within its pages—its terrible, unholy pages—was not the end of a curse, not the lifting of the Mark, but a promise of worse to come.

Exactly as Jacob Styne explained in that store.

Sleep was extinguished. He rose from his bed and, in tee and scrub bottoms, went down the hallway to the kitchen, where instead of grabbing a beer, as he'd originally intended, he poured instead two fingers' of whiskey. Hunter's Helper. Cheap, raw, temporary immunity.

He found himself, with a refilled glass in his hand after knocking back the first shot, returning to the room in which he'd found his brother mere hours before.

He entered the dungeon, paused, gazed upon the embedded devil's trap even as Sam had done. Then, because he had to, he stepped within it.

'_Well then you'll just have to lock me up . . . bind me to the bunker like you did last time.'_

He didn't know if Sam could do it.

And then he thought—hell, no, he _knew_—that yes, Sam could . . . because his little brother wasn't that kid anymore, that innocent-eyed boy who, despite his training, his competence, still wanted to believe that there was good in the world and that his big brother could do no wrong.

Dean mourned the loss of that kid, that Sammy. He mourned a little, too, because he thought that just possibly, _now_, Sam could do anything, anything at all, that Sam, independently of his brother, felt needed doing.

'_Until I watch you become a demon again? Until then? I can't do that. I won't do that.'_

He'd become a demon, and in his absence his brother had become a man.

Dean knocked back the whiskey, then stepped out of the devil's trap because he was human, and could.

* * *

**~ end ~**

* * *

_A/N: I know some fans have felt Sam's role has been reduced this season, but I don't feel it's less, just *different.* He's a completely grown up Sam, a mature man who lost his brother, got him back, and has taken the lead while Dean fights the MoC. He has stepped out of the very large shadow cast by his big brother, and is showing the same kind of drive and determination that fueled Dean all of his life. I celebrate Sam for finding his comfort zone, for playing the "big brother" as Dean's light is diminished by the Mark._


End file.
